IS SPRING NEARLY HERE

 Or not?

Mild - yes, damp - yes, but I am not casting any clouts yet.

Yeh! Yeh! we have snowdrops.

But that is all a bit boring now, in the local garden centre a small pot was £5.99! That must make the garden worth thousands.

But we do have the odd crocus and - this up by Tom's buddleia.

The are a bit tatty on some of the petals but food for something.

The rhubarb is struggling from the soil but there are hopes of a good crop. Must put a bit of extra compost on but they really could do with some good old muck.

We have a large flock of starlings whirling about but not chattering much yet. The rook are beginning to build and I have heard the woodpecker drumming. Yesterday I heard the first call of the song thrush and perhaps a chief chaff. 

One of the bird feeders has died - mauled by the squirrels - so had to get another.

And it gets busy under the feeders - pheasants, wood pigeons, finches and also wood mice.

I had scattered a few seeds on the ground thinking I would get something big - not these minute whizz kids - one speed flat-out or nothing!

Flowers - we have - 

Clematis armandii

First camellia

What was supposed to be a white hellebore!

That viburnum again

Golden saxifrage growing wild by the stream

Pulmonaria - lungwort because the white spots on the leaves resemble a lung infected with TB.

The little daffs we brought in a pot from our previous house 16 years ago (really that long!)

And then we have much activity in the pond where the frogs have got frisky fooling around and we have a big clump of frogspawn. No doubt the ducks will come and eat it.

Having moaned about wet conditions the garden is getting dry. The stream is becoming a trickle and the grass is growing, needs a-mowing?